Eolande and The Blind Prince

Chapter 1
Eolande stirred in her bed, her eyes fluttering as she slowly woke up. 'What a strange dream,' she thought, as she ran her slender fingers through her titian hair. She sat up, rubbing her eyes. It was a recurring dream that woke her up most nights. She then noticed that it was raining. In the distance, she could hear familiar clanging of metal. She shook her head as she gave a heavy sigh.

"Oh, your father. I don't know what to do with him." replied Eolande's grandmother, Flora, as Eolande entered the kitchen to help her. "But I can't blame him. There was a ruckus in town today."

"A ruckus? What happened?" Eolande replied as she tied her apron around her waist. "The collectors took three people to prison because they failed to pay their debts to them." Grandma Flora said with a tone of sourness in her voice. "Those poor people. Sometimes, I swear King Traidon has another reason for ransacking their houses and throwing them behind bars. Mark my words," Eolande's grandmother admonished while waving a wooden spoon in the air, "I'm not surprised if he's the reason why our beloved King Charodon's only son was murdered twenty years ago."
"Grandma, that's only a legend. King Charodon didn't have a son." Eolande started cutting a beetroot.
"That's what they say these days, do they. Huh!" Grandma Flora snorted in disgust as she threw olives in a bowl."What do you know?"
"No one's ever seen him, Grandma." Eolande explained. "Perhaps outside the palace walls no one has." Her grandma shot back with conviction. "You know as well as I do that I used to be a maid in the palace. I didn't like the look of Traidon- even his smell- years before he became king. Even if he was Charodon's brother, he didn't feel right."
Eolande didn't answer as she took out a loaf of bread from the stove.
"Has it ever occured to you, Eolande, that King Traidon is the reason Ethaca has fallen on hard times?"
"Grandma, let's not talk about it anymore." Eolande muttered. "I don't want to start my day with all this doomsday predictions."
"Very well." Grandma Flora said grumpily. "Would you go to your father and tell him breakfast is ready?"

"Papa, you can't work in this condition." Eolande answered as she entered her father's workshed. It was rather dim inside and the thatched roof was leaking. The loud, rhythmic strike of the mallet onto the hot blade echoed throughout the place. Only the flickering flames from the stove illuminated the whole place.
"I don't see why not," Eolande's father panted as he dipped the blade in the nearby quench tank. Their was a hissing sound in the tank as he stood upright and wiped the trickling sweat from his brow. "Good morning, Eolande." He smiled at his daughter. Eolande looked at him with a worried frown.
"What's the matter?"
"Nothing." Eolande muttered. "It's just...you're...we're..."
Her father smiled at her knowingly. "It's about the taxes, isn't it?"
"No, that's not it!" Eolande cried. "It's all this, Papa! Our unpaid taxes, yes, but it's impossible these days to even have enough money to buy at least two loaves of bread! And you being a swordsmith, you can't even sell a dozen swords like we used to. How do they expect us..." her voice trailed away. Eolande wanted to cry, but she couldn't. She was too angry. She watched as her father reached for a sword above the stove.
They heard the rain roar mercilessly outside.
"Eolande," her father answered soothingly as he took the sword from his sheath. Eolande was awestruck at the magnificence of the sword: its pommel was made of diamond, the hilt was covered with textured leather, embroidered with elegant patterns, its crossguard was made of white gold and the blade was made of steel, gracefully carved with Ethacan characters.
"The late King Charodon gave me this priceless sword as a gift for supplying his men with my finest swords for the war. That was years before you were born." He let Eolande hold the sword. "The blade is very light," Eolande answered as she examined it. "But good swords should have a good deal of weight."
"I thought of the very same thing." Her father nodded. "But..." he took the sword from Eolande and carefully placed the sword flat horizontally on his finger between the crossguard and the blade. Neither side of the sword fell but balanced perfectly on his finger. "...It's not an ordinary sword."
Eolande was fascinated as her father took the sword back in its sheath. "This sword, is one of the three Sacred Blades of Ethaca." Her father answered. "Now I give it to you."
"Me?" Eolande inhaled, "but... it's the sword of Ethaca."
"And King Charodon said, 'The true Ethacan blood stands with courage and the beauty of justice.' I trust, Eolande, you are worthy of this sword."
Before he could give the sword to Eolande, someone pounded on the door of the workshed.
"In the name of King Traidon of Ethaca, open up!" someone shouted.


Chapter 2
"It must be the tax collectors." Eolande's father, Heron, sadly guessed as the pounding continued. "But we don't have enough money!" Eolande said anxiously. "They'll take you as prisoner and... I won't let them!"
"Eolande," Heron said gravely as he walked toward the door. "I want you to take care of the sword and never tell anyone else, even your grandma."
"Papa-"
"Do as I tell you!"
"Yes, but-"
"Go and hide."
Eolande's heart fell as she went to the back of the workshed and hid the sword in the stack of hay. There was the sound of the door bursting open and the sound of whinnying horses and the commanding voice of the collector.
"I trust that you can pay your debt today, Heron?"
Then the sound of Grandma Flora's voice. "We don't have any money left because of your king's ridiculous law! Your king has no right to imprison the poor!"
"He is your king, too." The collector's voice sounded dangerously murderous.
"Huh! The only king worth serving is King Charodon if he were still alive!"
"Hold your tongue, Mother." Heron warned her. "We must not disobey them.Take care of Eolande for me."
"No!" Eolande cried out. She ran toward her father. "No, Papa!"
"Eolande, I told you-"
"Take me instead!" Eolande replied to the burly tax collector. "I'm willing to take my father's place."
"Eolande-"
Eolande ignored her father. "Please, sir. My father is old and he's not fit to bear time in prison."
The collector squinted his eyes at her. "Madam, it is with a heavy heart I imprison people, believe me. I have even imprisoned my own brother... please trust me when I say it would be better for everyone if your father went."
Tears streamed down Eolande's cheeks as her father went off with the collector in the heavy rain.

It was quiet as she and her grandmother ate dinner. It had stopped raining and the moon shone brightly in the sky.
Eolande looked at her grandmother who was was bitterly silent. They had eaten very little. She couldn't take it anymore. She slammed a fist on the table. " This isn't just! Why did they have take him? Why can't the king see how much everyone is suffering right nor because of him? How can he possibly be so heartless? WHY?" Her shoulders shook as she sobbed. "Poor Papa... he must be so... so unhappy there in prison."
Grandma didn't answer as she gazed at her granddaughter.

After a few minutes of crying, Eolande exhaled. "I'm going to free him."
Grandma Flora looked at her, puzzled. "But we don't have the money." Eolande stood up and squared her shoulders. "I don't need money to free him." she said in determination.
Eolande went to the workshed and took the Sacred Blade of Ethaca and placed it around her waist. Then she took out her father's strongest horse out of his stable.
"Where are you going?" Grandma Flora demanded as Eolande placed the reins and the saddle on the horse. "I'm going to help Papa escape." Eolande replied as she climbed on her steed.
"Escape? What if they caught you? You can't expect me to get a sword and a horse just to help you out of prison!"
"It's the only way."
"Huh! You're not the only one who has family locked up in the palace. But they're not charging up to the palace, aren't they?"
"Grandma..."
"I'm not stopping you, child. You have an Ethacan heart and that is enough for you to free your father. Go!" Grandma Flora snapped. "Scoot! Go on! Before I change my mind!"